


Of Becoming

by DaraOakwise



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: F/M, Middle aged bureaucrats kicking ass and taking names, The Thick Of Unit, The Thick of Unit Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:10:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13159956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaraOakwise/pseuds/DaraOakwise
Summary: Set in the fantastic "The Thick of Unit" universe, four moments between Malcolm Tucker and Kate Stewart.





	Of Becoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nehszriah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehszriah/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Thick of UNIT](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4932334) by [Nehszriah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehszriah/pseuds/Nehszriah). 



> This is set in Neh’s fantastic “The Thick of UNIT.” Universe, which is Malcolm Tucker and Kate Stewart, kicking alien (and human) ass and taking names. Go read it first.
> 
> This story is four vaguely related moments between Malc and Kate, in no particular chronological order, with as little plot as I could get away with. Rated for Malcolm speaking, and a horny power couple.

_“Whether it is good or evil, whether life in itself is pain or pleasure, whether it is uncertain—that it may perhaps be this is not important--but the unity of the world, the coherence of all events, the embracing of the big and the small from the same stream, from the same law of cause, of becoming and dying.” —Hermann Hesse_

 

-1-

 

"Fucking paranormal ESP?!” Malcolm Tucker said, strolling into his new boss’s office, a stack of papers in hand. Kate Stewart looked up at him with a wry grin. She’d sprung him from prison to spin UNIT in the eyes of the public and to keep them as safely anonymous as an organization charged with the protection of the Earth could be. And he was the best -- for good reason, it turned out.

“It’s just an assessment review, Malcolm,” she said. He’d been given one, like everybody who came on at UNIT. It tested baseline skills--language comprehension, maths, science--along with the less easily-quantifiable qualities UNIT wanted in its employees: problem solving, intelligence, creativity, and loyalty, among others.

“Sure, love,” Malcolm said, flipping through the pages of his own assessment. “I’m not a fucking teenager here, I know myself. High mastery of language, of course. Maths were passable. Chemistry--fucking flunked it. Respect for the chain of command,” he glanced up at her and flipped to the next page. “Fuck no.” That wasn’t entirely true, Kate knew.  His assessment showed that he was fiercely loyal to anyone who he felt deserved it. Superiors, subordinates, didn’t matter. On the other hand, if he thought you were a twat, he didn’t bother to hide his palpable disdain. Kate hadn’t been able to decide if that was a good or bad quality.

“But fucking ESP?” Malcolm continued. He laughed and tossed the report down on her desk. “Seriously. You’re fucking with me.  Fucking hazing ritual for the new guy, yeah?”

Kate leaned back in her chair. “Humans are low on the Esper scale,” she explained, and gestured for Malcolm to sit, which he did with a sloppy grace that she’d been unsuccessfully trying to tell herself was _not_ attractive in the three weeks he’d been here. “Telepathic skill is very weak in humans. A few humans can be taught to block, but that’s about it.  Telekinesis, almost nil without significant and frankly devastating neurological modifications. A few have natural traces of precognition, which, the Doctor tells us, can sometimes be enhanced if a human has contact with the time vortex. But, although it isn’t a particularly strong paranormal manifestation in humans, most of us are measurable empaths.”

“Bollocks,” Malcolm snorted.

“No,” Kate insisted.  “It’s true.  We didn’t recognize it in ourselves until extraterrestrials pointed it out.  But humans generate a low-level empathic field that creates a shared emotional state. Think about …” she grasped at the air, looking for examples. “The rage of a mob,” she continued. “Football hooligans in delirium. Worshipers at a religious revival speaking in tongues. Thirty thousand fans at a concert spontaneously singing _Bohemian Rhapsody_. We’ve all been in places where we feel somehow moved beyond ourselves by a collective emotional experience.  That’s the human empathic field.  It's more noticeable in large groups, but stronger empaths can sense it one-on-one.  People like you.”

“That is fucking insane,” Malcolm said with an incredulous laugh.

“You can tell when someone is lying to you,” Kate insisted, ticking off the points on her fingers as she spoke. “You know when _they_ know that you are lying to them. You can tell when an idiot is pretending to understand something. You sense when people are afraid. You feel where they are vulnerable. You are an expert at manipulating emotions. You can’t tell me I’m wrong.” She didn’t mention the other points she knew he would deny: that he knew what made people happy.  Knew how to make them laugh, if he wanted to. If he cared anything for positive emotion, he was probably a fantastic lover. _Down, girl,_ Kate told herself sternly.

Malcolm gaped at her, then frowned.  “It’s not some … some fucking voodoo sci-fi shite. I’m just an evil bastard who’s knows a fuckwit when I see one.”

“The tests are clear,” Kate insisted. “You innately perceive the emotional and mental states of the people around you. Doesn’t make you a nice person, by any stretch, but it means you know what to say to make people believe a story. Perfect spin.”

“You,” Malcolm said, chuckling as he stood, “are full of shite.”  Then he grinned and winked at her as he sauntered out the room.  

It was good to know what he was, Kate considered, looking down at the assessment he’d left on her desk.  If he was being damn attractive, well, of course he was.  An empath, the strongest human empath she’d ever met. She would have to be on her guard. Because he might not believe it, but that certainly didn’t change who he was.

 

-2-

 

Another new government meant it was Cabinet Day again.

The alarm on Kate’s phone was set for 4:35 a.m. Kate groaned in protest when it beeped, and reached for Malcolm, who was already rolling out of their bed. For all her years in UNIT, she couldn’t match his formidable ability to function on no sleep, cultivated over far too many nights following politicians around trying to catch their shit before it hit the ground. He leaned back and kissed her, all stubble and morning breath, then peeled the duvet off of her.

“Fucker,” she growled at him, and he laughed as he padded downstairs to start the coffee and call for the car.

She was stepping out of the shower when he came back and, towel half around her breasts, gave him a quick kiss when they traded places.  Malcolm shaved and soaped, and Kate could feel him admiring her through the curtain while she worked on her hair and makeup.

By the time he’d dried off, she had two crisp uniforms pulled from the closet: Brigadier for her, Colonel for him. Not the battle gear, not today, but the formal blacks-and-berets version. Seven years on, and Malcolm still sighed when he saw them.

_I’m not a soldier, love,_ he’d told her a million times, preferring the civilian garb they usually wore. But UNIT was military, and despite his protests, he’d become a soldier—and a battle-hardened one at that, as his scars, and hers, attested.

They stood wordlessly side-by-side in front of the mirror, doing up buttons and zippers.  Malcolm gave Kate a sly smile and straightened her tie, then stuffed his red beret under his shoulder board and followed his boss and lover down the stairs. At 5:15 a.m., coffee and classified binders in hands, Malcolm held the car door open for her while she murmured good morning to their driver.

“10 Downing Street,” Kate instructed as Malcolm settled in beside her. They traveled across London in silence, Kate reviewing her notes while Malcolm turned pensive. He’d never say it, but Cabinet Day was hard on him.

It was dawn when they arrived. Malcolm stepped crisply out of the car and settled the beret on his head, reflexively glancing around for danger before walking around to Kate’s door.

“Brigadier,” he said, and offered her his hand, which she took with a faint smile and a squeeze no one else would notice. Her leg twinged faintly as he helped her up, an injury she had practice in ignoring.

“After you, Colonel,” she said, and followed the old Wolf of Whitehall through the doors of Number 10  into his former life. It certainly wasn’t the first time they’d done this over the years, but Kate marveled at how the loitering politicians and bureaucrats still stumbled away from him like they’d just been fisted by a ghost. The staff, though—he remembered their names, and their kids’ names. She wondered, sometimes, which office here had been his. He’d never said.

Through the maze of hallways, he stopped just once to shake a hand. “Jamie,” Malcolm said. “Welcome back to hell.”

“Malc,” the man answered.  “Nice fucking outfit. I like the sparkles.”

“Fuck you,” Malcolm answered, without rancor.

Then they were into the Cabinet room, and Kate was murmuring greetings to the Prime Minister, whom they’d already briefed privately. Kate glanced around the room at the assembled Ministers and senior advisers.  Some faces she recognized, in and out of government over the years, and most of those were somber--they knew what was coming, unlike their cocky compatriots who had no idea they were about to learn that neither they nor the Earth were as powerful as they thought.  

“.....Brigadier Stewart, and I think some of you know her Deputy, Colonel Tucker,” the Prime Minister was introducing them. “I suspect that you will find this … well.  Interesting and instructive.”

Kate stood, and glanced at Malcolm, who’d already turned his predatory gaze on the politicians. His job, as ever, was to identify anyone who might be about to spill their guts — metaphorically or otherwise. The former would be getting a follow-up visit, and a sampling of Malcolm’s more formidable persuasive skills.

“Ministers,” Kate began, “this briefing is classified Top Secret, and concerns planetary security ....

 

-3-

 

“Fuck,” Malcolm coughed, all he could manage as skidded around the corner, slid over the concrete barrier, and jammed himself beside Kate, who was just lifting herself shakily off the ground. She looked over at him, his battle fatigues still smoldering faintly, like hers.

“...what?” she called over the explosions.

“Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo,” he shouted back. “Fuckity fucking fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kate agreed, and risked a glance over the barrier. The reinforcements she’d called in just before her radio had been blasted out of her hand were arriving, at last. There they were in the distance, Humans and Zygons in UNIT uniforms, thank god.  So maybe they wouldn’t die after all.  “Malcolm,” she said sharply when she ducked back down beside him, “do _not_ take that off.” He had pulled his helmet off and was fumbling with the straps on his vest. A flak vest, and more, full of alien tech; a gift from the Zygons, who knew even more about war than Earth did.

“I can’t fucking breathe,” he complained. “Something hit me in the back in that last explosion, must have broken a rib.”

Kate took a harder look at him. _Fuck._ She plunked his helmet back on his head and re-cinched the vest, tight.  He flinched.  “Just sit here a bit and stop moving,” she commanded, hand in the center of his chest until he leaned back against the relative safety of the barrier. She settled up against him with a sigh.  Everything was fucked, but it felt good to feel his shoulder beside hers.

“Do you have a radio…?” she started, and he held up a twisted mess of wiring. “Figures,” she sighed.

“Some fucking Director of Communications, I know,” Malcolm coughed.

They sat together for a long moment, the battle raging around them.  Then he narrowed his eyes at her, and half sat up.  “You’re fucking bleeding,” he said, gesturing to her leg, and it was true, she was. The last explosion had taken her down and turned her knee inside out.  It hurt like hell. She wasn’t getting off this battlefield unless someone carried her, and the blood loss was starting to darken the edges of her vision. Malcolm pulled his medical aid kit out of his vest pocket and leaned awkwardly over her leg in the cramped space,  keeping his head low, and carefully cut her trousers from cuff to thigh with his knife.  

She sucked in a pained breath, and tried not to look.  “Hell of a way to get into my pants,” she joked feebly. “My leg still attached?”

“It’s a fucking mess, love,” he said evasively, and clamped both hands above her knee, hard.

“Fuck, Malcolm,” she groaned.

He ignored her. “I’ve got bandages.  And, uh, the alien stuff in the vials, from the Osgoods. Green for … something.  Yellow for blood loss, I think.   _Fuck_ . Fucking explosions are making my head fuzzy.” He blinked heavily and shook his head. “Fucking _breathe_ Malcolm,” she heard him mutter to himself.

There was not a hell of a lot of time left, Kate knew, and she needed his help. “Just wrap my leg and hand the vials to me,” she told him.

“Tourniquet,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she admitted, and watched her lover’s hands, crimson with her blood, tremble as he tended to her. He tightened the band above her knee, and _fuck,_ somehow it hurt _so much fucking worse_.

“Sorry,” he murmured when she twisted back in agony. “Sorry, sorry.” The bleeding slowed, and that started the clock--if they didn’t get help soon, she’d lose the leg, if it wasn’t too late already.  They both knew it.

She breathed shakily for a moment, clammy chills clawing up from her gut, and held his hand to ground her. “It’s okay,” she lied, unable to meet his gaze. “Okay, okay, okay.” He wordlessly handed her his water, two swallows left, and although she knew she should save some for him, she drank it all gratefully. When she was convinced she wasn’t going to pass out, she took another long look at him. Then she pulled the yellow vial out of his kit, uncapped the injector, and slammed it into his neck.

He jerked back. “Kate! What the fucking hell are you doing?” he hissed, rubbing where she’d stuck him.

“Yellow is for blood loss,” she answered calmly.  “I’ve already used mine.  And the green one is for pain, but I think I’d better save yours until you start feeling it, because you obviously aren’t yet.”

He blinked owlishly at her, and the penny dropped. “Fuck,” he said fervently. She heartily agreed.

He took a glance over his shoulder, unsuccessfully trying to self-assess. Kate painfully shifted her shredded leg, and he gingerly scooted forward so she could get a better look at him.

“Not good,” she told him, a hand on his back.

“I can’t breathe,” he complained again, and reached for the straps on his vest.

“Fucking leave it Malc,” she said tiredly. The way he was acting, his damaged vest’s automatic life support systems were fading in and out. She couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, but wasn’t about to take it off him, in case it was the only thing holding him together.

“Okay,” he answered, letting his hand fall. He dropped his head backward, helmet clunking against the concrete at their backs, and closed his eyes.

“Sleep is not a good idea right now, Malcolm,” Kate said sharply, and gave him as hard a nudge as she dared.

“Yellow for blood. That’s confusing,” Malcolm continued woolily.  “Why not red for blood, and …. something … else for the other things?” He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her.  “Sorry, what were we talking about?”

“Not sleeping,” Kate said gently, and reached out to cinch his vest even tighter, hoping it would re-seal. He grimaced, then snapped bolt uptight.

“Hey, there is something really wrong with your leg.”  He patted at his pockets. “I have a thing, from Osgood.  Yellow for … something.  Blood. We are sitting in a fucking lot of blood, did you know that?” He was starting to ramble. “That yellow stuff is shite. You tell the Osgoods I said so.”

“Malcolm,” Kate pled. The battle wasn’t showing any signs of stopping any time soon. They both ducked when a shell exploded over their heads. The movement jarred her leg, and the universe roiled in fire and pain.

When she could see again through the throbbing haze, Malcolm was flat on his back and peering up at her in concern. “Okay?” he asked weakly.

“No,” Kate coughed. “We are in some trouble here, Malc.”

“...up a crusty cunt….without a condom,” he agreed, his breathing more labored by the moment. He clawed at his vest, panicking. “I can’t fucking breathe, Kate.” She pulled out his green vial, but when she moved to empty the alien narcotic into his veins, Malcolm grabbed her wrist.  She borrowed his bollocking face, but he stopped her before she could start into him. “Save that for you, in case you have to crawl out of this fuck hole,” he insisted, suddenly clear again.

“I can’t leave, Malc.”

“Don’t be fucking sentimental,” he growled.

“No, I mean … I can’t move.  There is no way.” She didn’t tell him that even just sitting here, each wave of agony was threatening to pull her into oblivion.

He seemed to know it anyway. Malcolm gave her a weak smile. “Fucking cavalry is taking its time, but it’ll get here.” He groaned and pushed himself up to check on her leg, then tugged the green vial from her unresisting fingers and pressed the drugs into her thigh. It didn’t help with the pain, not really, but the black edges in her vision receded by a few degrees. She shivered.

Malcolm leaned forward, head in his hands, fighting again for breath that wouldn’t come. “Must be a big fucking hole in the back of this vest for the medic systems to be fucking me like this.” He coughed and foamy pink blood dripped off his bluing lips into the dirt.

“There is,” Kate answered softly. They were now, as he might colorfully say, a cock-length into a spewing shithole. _A rapidly cascading crisis,_ her mind supplied, somewhat more professionally. There wasn’t anything she could do for him, and damned little he could do for her.  She shivered again. “It’s cold, Malc,” she said softly.

He lifted his head and squinted at her. “Fucking freezing. C’mere,” he said and, wincing, pulled her under his arm and leaned them up against the barrier. His strength failed at the last second and his back and shoulders thudded painfully into it. He coughed—hard, wet, tearing—and she turned her face into his chest, all she could do to comfort him with the pain boiling up her leg again.

His grip on her went slack and, a moment later, with the staccato chatter of arms fire and deeper roar of explosions still all around them, she knew he’d left her alone. She closed her eyes and drifted after him into the dark. Her last conscious thought was the hope that the first soldier who found them would be wearing UNIT’s winged globe. And that they’d get here soon.

 

-4-

 

Their partings were almost always abrupt, unplanned, and accompanied by rapid-fire instructions about how to fight the latest catastrophe. They never knew when—or if—they’d seen each other again, but there was never time for sentiment. A hand on a knee before the chopper went up or a quick glance across a room full of scurrying techs and soldiers was usually all the goodbye they got.

They did better with hello.

Kate dug through her bag for her keys. The bag was an ugly, overstuffed carry-all, hastily grabbed from under her desk, and it hadn’t really been up to the task of her three-week absence.

“Fucking keys, where the fuck …?” she muttered under her breath. The umbrella she was clutching between her chin and shoulder wasn’t doing much to keep rain off. She was about to just upend the bag and dump the whole mess on the ground when the door opened from the inside. She dropped the bag and umbrella with a relieved huff and stepped into Malcolm’s arms.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she sighed, and clung to him, rain be damned, and he was more than content to hold her.

After a moment he pulled her inside and grabbed her umbrella and grimy bag. “I was hoping you’d be back today,” he said, closing the door behind them.

Kate grimaced at herself in the hall mirror; she was a wreck. “Me too. Don’t bring that too far inside,” she cautioned, gesturing at the bag. “By now it’s practically a biological weapon. Not much out there in the way of laundry facilities.”

“I’ve been there, love,” he chuckled.

Home always felt strange, the world a bit tilted, after so many weeks away. And whenever either one of them was gone, their place always took on a faint bachelor-pad vibe: papers piled on the table, coats hung on chairs, half-eaten Chinese take-out in the kitchen.

He’d been reading, she could tell. The house was nearly dark, save the light by his chair and the stack of paperwork beside it. He looked faintly rumpled, reading spectacles perched on his nose, UNIT gym shirt peeking out from under a worn-out fleece, his hair a bit longer than he usually let it grow and curling from the rain. She reached out and ran her fingers through it, and when he closed his eyes, she pulled him down for a gentle, lingering kiss.

His gaze was soft when he opened his eyes again. She ran her hands down his chest. “I need a shower,” she sighed, and when he raised his eyebrows, she clarified: “to shave my legs and make sure there is still a human under all of this dirt. But don’t go anywhere,” she told him with another kiss.

“I’ll be here,” he smiled.

Kate started the shower and peeled off her filthy uniform, then walked into their bedroom to dump it into the hamper. Bed was tempting. His side was unmade, hers untouched, though she doubted he’d spent much time in it these last few weeks either; throughout the emergency he’d been at the office every time she called for a report.

The hot water was heaven. When her scrubbing was done she sat on the tile floor and let it pour over her until the water went cold. Still damp, she stole Malcolm’s robe off the hook, not bothering with anything else, and padded back down the stairs.

He looked up at her over the top of his glasses. “Still human?” he teased.

She took the report out of his hands and the glasses off his face, then straddled him in his chair. “You’ll have to check,” she answered, and leaned down to kiss him hungrily. He returned it, a little desperately, and she knew the feeling: giddy need underpinned by a melancholy kind of gratitude for the reunion. They both knew, too well, how quickly things could clusterfuck out there.

He moaned into her lips and wrapped his arms around her waist. He’d kissed his way down her neck before he spoke again. “You are a fucking _goddess,_ ” he said reverently.

“The goddess of fucking decrees that you are wearing too many clothes,” she said, a judgment with which he didn’t seem to disagree. He pulled his fleece over his head and she skimmed his t-shirt up his sides. For her part, the over-sized robe had slipped off her shoulders and was pooling around her bent knees and his hips. The chair meant that his trousers would be more problematic, but he didn’t seem concerned. He always seemed to enjoy her orgasms as much as she did. It was damned selfish of her, she considered distantly as he curled a finger inside of her, but she’d make it up to him later.

“Ah, Kate,” he sighed, when they came up for air, his fingers still lingering deliciously. “As much fun as fucking in the chair would have been in my twenties, my fucking back can’t take it. And neither can your knee. But it turns out we have a lovely bed upstairs.”

She smiled down at him. It was, sadly, true. She crawled off his lap, tilting her hips so that her well-placed slide made him groan, then stood and tugged the robe back over her shoulders, letting it frame what she knew was his favorite view.  Still in afterglow, his appreciative leer was nearly enough to set her off again. She pulled him up, then swayed him back toward her and took advantage of the moment to loosen his belt and fondle him obscenely, which drew a shaky “fucking _fuck_ ” from him.

Some nights were all nasty talk, teeth and nails, torn clothing and deep angles and backs against the wall. Others, like tonight, when they both felt on the verge of tears, were gentler.

She took his hand, and he followed her up the stairs to their bedroom. She turned them when they got there and coaxed him onto his back when they reached the edge of their bed. She slipped out of the robe and divested him of his trousers, then slid up his body, leaving kisses wherever she could reach. He traced his hands over her skin, arse and thighs, back and shoulders, then pulled her close.

“Kate,” he murmured reluctantly, voice muffled in the crook of her neck. “Walsh said you had another close call out there.”

She sighed, then lifted up on her elbows and frowned down at him. “It was nothing. A miss, maybe a near one, but a complete miss.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go out there anymore,” he mumbled. “You’re too much a target.”

“Who should I send instead” she asked, a little sharply. “Gordon? You?”

Malcolm scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know…Fuck me.”

“That part I can do, Malcolm,” she said with a smirk, and waited for his smile. It was slow, but it came. “Can you please table the Colonel-Deputy Director shite for tonight, and just be my lover?” She didn’t wait for his answer, but knelt between his legs to drop kisses down his belly, then lower.

He grabbed at the duvet cover and moaned. “You don’t fight fair,” he managed.

She lifted her head to look at him. “That’s why I always win.” It was the last thing either of them would speak until morning. She moved back up his body, then rocked her hips forward into his.  Anything they had left to say was said with beating hearts and sliding hands, rising curves and gasps in the dark that built to slow release, then dreamless sleep.

Tomorrow could be anything. He might wake her with a twinkle in his eye, and spend the day caressing her under the table during important meetings. Or they might be apart until they celebrated another rotation together on the good Earth over pizza and classified reports. Or it could be the Bad One they both dreaded, the day when fate caught them at last and made this their final, bittersweet memory.  Tomorrow was always uncertain.Tonight, though—tonight they were two humans out of seven and a half billion, joined under the spinning stars.


End file.
